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Seaspan is moving forward with plans to build a new office on the North Vancouver waterfront as the firm ramps up production and welcomes more than 1,300 new shipbuilding and office staff over the next five years. The District of North Vancouver voted to approve permits for the shipbuilding and tug company earlier this month to build the four-storey, 84,000-square-foot office at the end of Pemberton Avenue adjacent to the shipbuilding yard.

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With B.C.’s potential industrial growth being linked to the production and shipping of liquefied natural gas and increased oil shipments to Asian markets, it is perhaps fitting that the new chair of the Business Council of B.C. is Jonathan Whitworth, the CEO of shipbuilder Seaspan. Whitworth, 47, takes over from Hank Ketcham, executive chair of West Fraser Timber, whose two-year term as BCBC chair has expired.

A North Vancouver shipyard operator on Thursday rejected a federal spending watchdog’s observation that it lacks the experience and skill to hold down costs in an $8-billion vessel contract. Seaspan ULC chief executive officer Jonathan Whitworth was commenting after Ken Page, the parliamentary budget officer, released a report suggesting that the Harper government’s $2.6 billion estimate to build two of the ships could be low by at least $1.6 billion, and possibly as much as $3.8 billion, based on Seaspan’s lack of engineering expertise with similar vessels.

The B.C. government hardened its stance in the debate over the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline on Wednesday, using a late-afternoon news release to fire a direct shot at Enbridge. “The responses from Enbridge/Northern Gateway to cross-examination by our legal counsel are too often incomplete and lacking in commitment,” said the statement from Environment Minister Terry Lake after a day of pipeline hearings in Prince George.

British Columbia emerged as one of two big winners in a historic shipbuilding announcement Wednesday, as the federal government awarded North Vancouver-based Seaspan Marine Corp. an estimated $8-billion contract expected to create as many as 4,000 jobs in B.C.

Kudos to the B.C. Egg Marketing Board for labelling Wednesday's made-for-media event in down-town Vancouver - the unveiling of a life-size fire truck made from, of all odd things, egg cartons - as an exercise in "eggonomics."

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